In February 1966 the unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft made the first rocket assisted landing on the Moon.

But was Nazi leader Adolf Hitler the first man to make it up there and did the Nazis beat them to it by 21 years?

Hitler’s fate at the end of the Second World War has been subject to dozens of claims, ranging from a new life in South America, to one in an underground town on Antarctica or a retirement in outer space.

Does the final answer to Hitler's death lie on the dark side of the Moon?

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BASE: Did Hitler end up heading up a Nazi Moon HQ

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Space exploration is a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theories.

And one is that the Nazis used an Antarctic base to propel themselves to outer space.

Only last week, NASA felt compelled to publish thousands of extra pictures of the Moon Landings to quieten doubters.

The Hitler theory has some basis – speculation of Nazi Germany’s space exploration programme is rife.

Rumours circulated after the war that Hitler’s astronauts had embarked on secret missions to establish facilities up there.

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QUITE A VIEW: Earth seen from the Moon

Connections were drawn between flying saucer sightings – including one incident near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 – with the Nazis’ alleged UFO development.

The theories formed the basis of science fiction novel "Rocket Ship Galileo", published by Robert Heinlein in 1947.

Sir Roy Fedden, an aeronautical engineer, said the only craft that could approach the capabilities attributed to the flying saucers seen around the world during the late 1940s were those designed by the Germans.

The theory that Hitler ended up in Antarctica may lie hand in hand with the Moon ones.

Nazi Moon enthusiasts argue so-called UFO cases in the 1950s and 1960s were warnings by the Nazi SS, who had built a mammoth city and factory complex beneath the Antarctic ice.

The theories were derided for decades but surviving documents and eyewitness testimony have seen them surface again.

The February 3 Soviet landing came at the 12th attempt and beamed the first ground-view pictures of the Moon’s surface back to Earth.

It also proved for the first time that spacecraft would not sink into Lunar dust on landing.

But had the Nazi regime discovered this years earlier?

Nick Cook is an aeronautical expert and wrote The Hunt for Zero Point, which referenced the Nazi disc program.

In it, he said: "It would be a mistake to disregard the research in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s just because it was done in the Third Reich.

"This kind of suppression of facts would be unscientific and would be just as bad as the suppression of facts that happened during that era."

While Mr Fedden added: "I have seen enough of their designs and production plans to realize that if they had managed to prolong the war some months longer, we would have been confronted with a set of entirely new and deadly developments in air warfare."

Unusual images of Adolf Hitler

A collection of images of Adolf Hitler that different to the images we usually see of him

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Hitler eats cake with girl in Germany

As well as Hitler himself, significant Nazi riches were reportedly unaccounted for.

Navy submarines disappeared and were not sunk or captured. Theorists say they were last seen heading to the South Pole.

A supposed gold pile, now worth billions of pounds, also remained undiscovered.

Could this have been smuggled to the Antarctic and been used to propel the Nazis to the Moon?

Conspiracy theorists argue Hitler eyed a lunar base well before his regime crumbled.

This was so the Nazis could "exploit military high ground", containing global superpowers, and mine the abundant minerals on the Moon, with some insisting that pictures prove lunar excavation was ongoing.

They even go as far as suggesting this was why NASA abandoned the Apollo program.

Conventional thought is that Hitler shot himself during a Soviet assault before his body was taken outside, doused in petrol and set alight.

The Soviets claimed to identify his body through the lower half of his jaw.

But doubters have remained vociferous, particuarly as the Sovets did not reveal their "proof" of Hitler's death until 1970.

The world from space

Astronauts, like Kjell Lindgren and Brit Tim Peake, share incredible photographs taken from space. London, New York and California alongside amazing natural landscapes across our Earth are seen from 250 miles above in Space.